The AFA also organised all the Primera División championships from 1893 to 2016–17. From the 2017–18 season the "Superliga Argentina", an entity which is administrated independently and has its own statute, took over the Primera División championships.[2] Nevertheless, the Superliga is contractually linked with the main football body.[3]

History

The Argentine Association Football League (in English) was founded on 21 February 1893 by Alexander Watson Hutton, considered "the father" of Argentine football.[4] The Argentine Association is the oldest in South America and one of the oldest to be formed outside Europe. In 1906 Florencio Martínez de Hoz became the first Argentine-born president of the association.[5]

When both leagues merged for the 1927 season, the association was again renamed to "Asociación Amateur Argentina de Football" until the professionalization of the sport in 1931 when it switched to "Liga Argentina de Football". The first round of the recently created professional championship was on 31 May 1931.[1][6]

Despite football turning professional in Argentina, some clubs wanted to remain amateur so they formed a new league, the "Asociación de Football Amateur y Profesionales", which organized a parallel tournament until 1934 when the dissident association merged with LAF on 3 November 1934 to form the "Asociación del Football Argentino" which has remained since.[1][7]

In 2015, during the presidential elections to elect a new president for the body, there were two candidates to occupy Julio Humberto Grondona's chair, Marcelo Tinelli –who wanted a change in how things were going, like eliminating corruption between some clubs and the AFA– and Luis Segura, who had taken charge after Grondona's death, with the intention of extending his mandate.

With 75 presidents of different Argentine clubs voting, the day of the elections something went wrong when the final count resulted in a draw of 38 to 38 (76 votes in total). The explanation given was that one of the electors put a double vote and that mistake was not reported. As a result, the executive committee decided to postpone the election.[8]

After some meetings to put an end to the conflict, both candidates agreed to have another election in June 2016.[9]

In June 2016, AFA president Luis Segura was charged with "aggravated administrative fraud".[10] Segura has been replaced on an interim basis by the AFA's executive secretary, Damián Dupiellet.[11]

In 2017, the association approved the creation of a new entity, named "Superliga Argentina de Fútbol", which would take over the organisation of Primera División championship.[12] The main European football leagues (such as English Premier League or Spanish La Liga, organised by associations dedicated exclusively to that championships and run as separate entities from their respective National Associations) served as inspiration for the creation of the Superliga.[13]

The 2016–17 Primera División championship was the last tournament organised by the AFA. From the 2017–18 season, the "Superliga Argentina", an entity administrated by itself with its own statute, took over the organisation of Primera División championships since then on.[2]

Names

The body has been renamed several times since its establishment in 1893, in most of cases translating into Spanish the original British names. The list of names is the following:[14]